Harry H. Corbett trained as a serious stage actor before finding the role that would define his career: Harold Steptoe, the frustrated, socially aspiring half of the father-and-son rag-and-bone business in Steptoe and Son (1962–1974), played alongside Wilfrid Brambell. The show's huge popularity brought him national fame but also a typecasting he never fully escaped, despite his own ambitions for more varied, dramatic work. His film credits included the comedy The Bargee (1964), Carry On Screaming! (1966) and Terry Gilliam's Jabberwocky (1977). He remained, to the end, inseparable in the public mind from the character that made him famous.